MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Monday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe against Nationalist Congress Party (SP) leader Sharad Pawar, his daughter and Baramati MP Supriya Sule and his nephew and Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar for allegedly illegal permissions given to the Lavasa hill station project in Maval tehsil of Pune district.
A bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad said that they could not pass an order to register a criminal case against someone based on a PIL filed on the civil side by Nanasaheb Jadhav, a lawyer.
The HC had, in February 2022, refused to interfere when Jadhav had filed a petition seeking to declare the special permissions granted to Lavasa as illegal. The court had, however, noted there seemed to be some exertion of influence and clout by Sharad Pawar and his daughter.
In his PIL filed in 2022, Jadhav, an advocate and agriculturist, had claimed that the Lavasa project – the first private hill station sanctioned by the state government in 1994 – was executed under political influence, in violation of environmental norms, without taking into consideration the impact it would have on the socio-economic status of the surrounding villages.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Jadhav said that while the project has remained unresolved for over a decade, farmers in the affected areas have lost their livelihood as agricultural land has become unfit for cultivation. The compensation paid earlier to farmers was inadequate and vulnerable landowners had little legal recourse, Jadhav said.
{{/usCountry}}During the hearing on Tuesday, Jadhav said that while the project has remained unresolved for over a decade, farmers in the affected areas have lost their livelihood as agricultural land has become unfit for cultivation. The compensation paid earlier to farmers was inadequate and vulnerable landowners had little legal recourse, Jadhav said.
{{/usCountry}}The petitioner said that though several complaints about the alleged violations had been filed with the Pune city police, Pune Rural police and the Superintendent of Police since 2020, no action had been taken. Nearly 5,000 acres of land in Mulshi (Pune) was involved in the project, Jadhav said, and cited the response of the Commissioner of Industries, Maharashtra to a Right to Information application, which said no permission had been granted in respect of land linked to Supriya Sule. This, Jadhav alleged, amounted to “nepotism and abuse of power”.
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